


Thick Skin and an Elastic Heart

by rougefox



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire, game of thrones
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Modern AU, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 22:02:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15128723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rougefox/pseuds/rougefox
Summary: "....I know that I can surviveI walked through fire to save my lifeAnd I want it, I want my life so badAnd I'm doing everything I can...."





	Thick Skin and an Elastic Heart

**Author's Note:**

> So I did not mean to post this the first time around, but since people really liked it I have polished it up for all to enjoy! 
> 
> And yes it is inspired by the song of the same name by Sia.

Staff Sergeant Sandor Clegane relaxed in the front seat of the truck as it bounced down the sand and dirt road. He reached across the dash and flipped the air conditioning on. A blast of freezing cold air hit him in the face making him sigh with contentment. Corporal Hugh’s eyes flickered a second from the road in surprise.

 

“Relax son,” Clegane chuckled. “Anyone gives you shit about the A/C, you send them to me.”

 

Hugh’s face smiled as he enjoyed the perks of transporting supplies with someone whose pay grade allowed for climate control.

 

Clegane watched the rocky scenery of the Red Waste go by and made small talk with the kid.

 

_Where are you from?_

_What is your family like?_

_What’s the first thing you’re going to eat when you get back to Westeros?_

 

Unabated the kid started talking about his girlfriend back home.

 

She was beautiful

She was funny

She came from a good family

She writes him every day

 

_Poor bastard._ Clegane thought.

 

It was a song he had heard too many times in his career. Six weeks from now her letters would become further apart till one day she’ll be over the novelty of having a boyfriend in the Marines and the letters will stop.

 

Maybe he’ll get one last one asking if they could be friends but the result will always be the same: silent weeping under the covers after lights out or in one of the storage halls under the guise of inventory duty.

 

Clegane tuned out the prattle and reflected on how he would never have that problem. Sure there is always the tag chaser or barrack bunny back home, but as a whole The Suck was his home, wife and family.

 

He had always taken pride in his service: 10 years, promotions and six deployments to the Red Waste. He could look forward to a good retirement, healthcare and a lodging stipend. Nobody had it better.

 

Hugh broke his musing by slamming on the breaks.

 

“Sir?” the kid turned to him.

 

In the middle of road stood a goat herd with a shepherd, his young son and dog.

 

“Oh for fuck sake,” Clegane leaned out the window and hollered at the man in broken Lhazeern to get out of the way.

 

The shepherd didn’t move, he just stared at the ground.

 

Hugh  jumped out of the truck and approached the man yelling in Lhazeerne.

 

Suddenly the hair stood up on the back of Clegane's neck.

 

_This is very wrong._

 

Hugh was only a meter away from the man when the man reached inside his robes and handed something to his son. The boy ran to Hugh and wrapped his arms around his middle.

 

Clegane was half way out of the truck when the fireball over took the vehicle. The reinforced glass and steel paneling shielded his body from most of the blast.

 

When the recon party found them at dusk, the left side of his head and left arm  were still smoking.

 

All that was left of the shepherd and Hugh was a burnt patch of sand and scorched goat carcasses.

 

For some reason the dog had survived and was sitting beside Clegane when the recon party arrived.

 

***

 

If Clegane could scream it would be at the nurses: constantly telling him he would be alright, that he was doing fine, that he was healing nicely.

 

Did those dumb bitches not understand? He knew how bad his injuries were, he could still smell his cooked flesh. He could feel the burns when he blinked. His ear (or stump) still rang and drove him crazy at night when it was the only thing he could hear.

 

His left arm was burnt from elbow to the back of his hand and something was wrong with his leg, probably broken when the blast slammed the door into his body.

 

They were smart enough to keep mirrors out of his room. But one day after a walk around the hall to keep his leg muscles from atrophying he caught a glimpse in the reflection of a window.

 

What he saw made him almost double over: the flesh from the top of his head to his collar bone was burned like a hotdog left on the grill too long. The hair was gone but had grown long on the other side. There was a sliver of jaw bone peaking out on his chin.

  


Instead of screaming he began to laugh. He laughed so hard he tore open the scabs. He laughed till they walked him back to his room and put something in his IV to make him sleep.

 

When he awoke he stared up at the tile ceiling.

 

Around him nurses bustled, men screamed and wept.

 

Sandor didn’t react when the nurse returned. He didn’t speak when they asked him how he was or shown a light in his eyes. He stopped moving, reacting or speaking.

 

Nothing existed outside his mind.

 

After a month they deemed him well enough to transfer. By then his unused legs had withered almost to the point of not being able to support his weight. Not that there was a lot of him left, he only rose to go to the toilet and ate what was put in front of him only because he didn’t want a feeding tube forced down his throat.

 

A spot had opened up in the Highgarden VA hospital G ward (the troops called it the “Goofy” ward as is that’s where you went when you couldn’t tell if you were a dog or a person) and Sandor found himself on a direct flight from Tyrosh to Greenhand International Airport.

 

_Shell shocked_ they called him when he arrived.

 

_Post Tramatic Stress Disorder_ they wrote on his chart.

 

Indeterminate to permanent stay, was his treatment plan.

 

He was broken like so many soldiers before him. Maybe he would recover, maybe not.

 

Around him in the common room other broken men played cyvasse and watched TV. They attempted puzzles through their muscle tremors and medication haze.

 

Sandor sat in an oversized chair in the corner and watched the space between them; in the nothingness around the other people is where he found the most peace.

  


Corporal Hugh’s family and girlfriend visited once. They told him how proud of their son they were, how much he loved The Core, how they didn’t blame him for his death.

  


Sandor looked past them into nothing. After awhile they got uncomfortable and left.

  


No one else came.

  


His Sevenmas cards were made by school children sending out tokens to people they never met to learn compassion. His crochet blanket that the nurses put across his lap when they forced him outside had been made by a Girl Scout troop for merit badges.

 

He could hear the other patients with their families: tears and hugs, fights and laughter.

 

In the space between them, Sandor focused his mind.

  


At night his mind was no longer his. Over and over he watched the explosion, he saw the men he had killed, the women and children from that time his unit couldn’t clear out an enemy occupied school without casualties.

 

He would awake wanting to scream, wanting to cry, but instead he stared at the ceiling and waited for his morning medication.

 

One afternoon as Sandor sat in his chair in the corner of the common room a flash of red made him move his head.

 

Peeking around the door frame leading out to the main hall was a little girl. She had big green eyes, curly red hair and a rainbow of freckles across her nose.

 

Sandor was used to people’s children staring at him. Even with his increasingly long hair combed over his burns he was still a terrifying sight.

 

Surprisingly this little girl smiled at him and ran off with a giggle.

 

Sandor returned to his mind, staring at the spaces in between.

 

A  few days later she was back.

 

This time she stood in front of him and waved her tiny arms to get his attention.

 

“Hi!” she exclaimed when he focused on her form as she stood in front of him rocking back and forth on her pink tennis shoes. She was wearing a jean skirt, a purple shirt with a sparkling unicorn and a worn pink backpack who's shabbiness clashed with her shiny new clothes.

  


“My name is Alyce,” she smiled.

 

Sandor fixed her with a look that would have sent privates running when his face was whole, he doubted it was less intimidating now that he had the movie monster face to go with it.

  


The little girl giggled and scrunched her face at him in response.

  


Sandor scanned the room looking for her parents. The staff were usually pretty good at keeping visiting children away from the other patients.

  


The little girl waved her hands at him again.

  


“Hey! Why are you inside?” she asked in her squeaky little girl voice that was almost as grating as the low ringing in his bad ear.

 

Sandor ground his teeth.

  


For the first time since he arrived Sandor Clegane spoke; “Go away.”

  


If this had been a movie the room would have gone silent and the doctors would have run to his side.

  


But no one heard his croaking except for the little girl who shook her head making her curls bounce.

  


“You shouldn’t say that to me,” she scolded. “It’s not polite.”

  


Sandor scowled at her and spoke again; “Go find your mother.”

  


The girl tutted at him and replied, “You should go outside. My daddy always takes me out to watch the little grey birds in our backyard. It always makes me feel better when I’m sad.”

  


Sandor was about to tell the little girl where she could go, but she suddenly perked up like a dog hearing a training whistle and ran to the door.

  


She paused to turn and smile then waved before scampering away, her red curls flying and pink backpack bouncing as she ran.

  


Later that day when the nurse sat Sandor outside he raised his head to the trees that shaded his bench. As he let his eyes focus he saw them; little grey and green birds hoping from limb to limb chirping and singing. He watched them till it they led him back inside for dinner.

  


The girl was back the next day, then the next. Sandor began to seriously wonder where her parent where. He asked her but she responded cryptically that her daddy had been hurt and she didn’t know where her mommy was.

 

“Fly away and find your mummy,” he hissed at her once. She shrugged and vanished around the corner again, pink backpack bouncing.

  


The next day she was back, sitting in a chair next to him. She prattled on and on as she kicked her feet. She told him about her house in Stonehall, how when she was born her family lived in the North, but moved when she was a toddler because it was cheaper to live in the Stormlands and her mommy wanted to be near her sister.

 

She told him about her dog, a huge Bear Island Shepard mix that shed all over the house and once pulled her mommy down the street while chasing a squirrel.

 

She told him about her room; how she loved unicorns and wanted to visit her uncle on Skagos because that’s where unicorns came from even though her mommy told her they were just shaggy rhinos that died off a long time ago.

 

She prattled on and on about all the nothing that seemed important to a 6 year old; her bike, her dolls, her favorite movie, her favorite food, her favorite color(s), what she had drawn on the sidewalk with chalk. Before she left she would ask him about the birds outside; did he see the grey ones? The green? Were they singing? Were they playing or fighting? Were there any nests? Eggs? Babies?  

 

Finally realizing it was the only way to shut her up, Sandor would tell her what he saw outside; Yes, yes, yes, both, no, no, no.

 

Satisfied the little girl would run off, her pink backpack disappearing around the corner.

  


Sandor found himself looking forward to the girl's visits. He found himself studying the birds outside as to tell her what he saw.

 

Then one afternoon someone had the audacity to walk over to his corner and take the chair she usually sat in.

 

Sandor jumped up faster than he had moved in over a year and shoved the man on the ground. The nurses and orderlies where on him in a second. In his weakened, emaciated state he couldn’t fight them off and ended up dragged out of the room to be restrained back in his bedroom.

 

Laying strapped down in his bed, Sandor cried tears of humiliation and rage. If he had been back in physical condition he would have been able to throw the orderlies across the room. He would have been able to rip the restraints off the bed without breaking a sweat. Back when he had been whole no one would have dared to take anything from him.

 

But he wasn’t whole, he was broken, burned and strapped to a bed unable to see the only person who visited him, talked to him, gave a shit about him.

 

Sandor cried dry tears till the nurse came in a gave him something in his arm to make him calm.

 

“Lets see how you do in the morning,” she said pulling the needle from his flesh and locked the door behind her.

 

Sandor felt the familiar heat spread up his arm and into his heart were it would be pumped into his brain in a matter of seconds. The fuzziness filled his mind and he slipped into a deep sleep.

  


“Hey!”

 

Sandor forced his eyes open.

 

 

She was there, standing on her tiptoes to see over the side of the bed.

  


“What happened?” she asked.

  


Sandor licked his dry lips; “Someone tried to take your chair.”

  


The little girl wrinkled her face.

  


“I could have gotten another,” she pointed out.

  


Sandor couldn’t help it; he laughed. It hurt to do so, but he laughed harder.

  


The little girl giggled, then ran her hand through his hair, petting him like a dog.

 

“My daddy does this to me when I don’t feel well,” she smiled.

 

Sandor closed his eyes and focused on the feeling of being touched out of something outside of necessity.

 

She stopped and leaned close to his ruined ear. She spoke and the ringing ceased;

 

“I want to tell you about my daddy; he was a soldier who got hurt. But then one day he met my mother when she slipped on some rocks up North and hurt her ankle and ripped her jacket. He gave her his jacket and carried her to a tower where they talked and laughed. They walked across Westeros together and when they were done they were in love and had me. Then they moved to the South where we live now.”

 

Then she kissed him on the burned part of his face and whispered; “My daddy is brave and strong and makes me breakfast every morning. He takes me outside to watch the birds every afternoon before mommy gets home from work.”

 

“It’s going to be okay,” she breathed in his ear and then vanished from his sight.

 

The nurse awoke him the next morning flanked by two huge orderlies.

 

“You’re not going to give us anymore foolishness like you did yesterday, are you Mr Clegane?” she asked as she tapped the bubbles out of a syringe of sedatives.

 

Sandor turned to her and said; “No.”

 

She looked down at him, “What did you say?”

 

“No ma’am,” he replied, his voice scratchy in his own ears. “Could I please have breakfast?”

 

“Can you believe that?” the doctor whispered to the nurse as they stood at the nurse’s station watching Sandor Clegane sitting up in bed eating pancakes and watching TV.

 

“I thought I heard him laughing last night,” the nurse replied. “But we’ve never heard a peep out of him. All he’s done in the last six months is stare at that chair in the common room and watch the birds. We all nearly shat our pants when he jumped up and shoved Pate yesterday for touching his chair.”

  


The doctor shrugged. “Well here’s something even more surprising, all he could talk about was regaining his strength so he could hike the ruins of The Wall.”

 

***

 

A bone chilling gale rushed around Sandor Clegane nearly knocking him off his feet. Even in summer the North was freezing.

 

The Wall was not nearly as impressive as it once was back around the Second Targaryen Invasion.  A mere scar across the landscape that was dotted with small towns and crisscrossed by a major highway was all that was left. It was beautiful in a way that required imagination of what it once was, not what could be seen now.

 

The trail was relatively easy; the ground was rolling but dotted with large rocky spots around the ruins of the old forts.  Every hundred meters or so was a historical marker describing why this area was once of some importance. Now it was a patch of tall grass in boggy ground dotted with ambiguous stones and archaeological students digging  in the peat for college credit.

  


Sandor was doing better than he thought. A month after his last visit he had been released from the hospital. The fact he was able to walk out on his own two feet with no assistance was more gratifying than any promotion. After six months of intense physical therapy and training he felt ready to navigate the countryside and walk across Westeros from sea to shining sea.

 

He  was navigating the tumble down stones of Queensgate when he heard a scream.

 

Scuttling over the boulders he followed the shouting that formed into a stream of curse words as he got closer.

 

Wedged between two rocks lay a red haired woman in a purple jacket.

 

“Are you okay?” he called as she righted herself using her trekking poles.

 

“Yeah,” she said dismissively before putting weight on her feet. She yipped and fell over in a puff of downy feathers as a seam in her jacket exploded.

  


Sandor made his way to her side and held out a hand.

  


“Are you sure you are okay?” he ask again.

 

She looked at him through her askewed sunglasses and answered; “You know what? No, no I’m not okay! I came on this stupid trip to try and prove I’m not as worthless as my exhusband and his bitch mother made me feel and all I’ve done is get soaked by rain, frozen by wind, ripped off by shopkeepers and now twist my ankle and bust my jacket!”

 

Sandor chuckled and took her hand. Once she was leaning on her polls he pulled off his puffy white jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.

 

“Thank you” she mumbled blushing to the roots of her ginger hair peeking out from under her knit cap.

 

Sandor introduced himself and helped her limp to a boulder where she sat and took off her boot to examine her ankle.

  


Sansa Stark was her name. She was recently divorced from a total twat, lived in her parents spare room in Wintertown and worked as a secretary for an insurance agent.

  


She had a cousin in the Army, a brother in Skagos and a sister who lived in the Stormlands with her boyfriend.

  


And a rapidly swelling ankle that looked like it needed an ice pack and elevation.

  


He offered to help her to the town just on the other side of the ruins and she agreed

  


“Could I ask you one last favor, Sandor?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“Could you grab my backpack for me please? I was trying to get to my water bottle when I fell and I think its snagged on one of the boulders where you found me.”

 

Sandor left her leaning on her trekking poles to peak over the tall boulder.

 

Snagged on a rocky overhang was a bright pink backpack.

  
  
***  


 

In the little turn of the century bungalow nestled five blocks from Renly Baratheon Elementary school there is a wall covered in photographs.

 

The first are of two people raising their fist in triumph of making it from Eastwatch by the Sea to Westwatch by the Bridge.

 

The ones that follow show the same two people at different activities, holidays, dinners, special occasions.  One of the largest is of Sansa Stark in a simple white dress on the arm of a sharply dressed Sandor Clegane as they stood in front of the Winterfell County Courthouse flanked by a tall man with blue eyes and dark hair and a petite woman with short dark hair.

 

The next photo was Sandor’s favorite: Sansa sitting up in a hospital bed, her hair messy but her face joyful. In a chair next to the bed sat Sandor in a surgical smock with his hair pulled up under a bonnet.

 

Cradled between them is a swaddled bundle with a halo of red hair.

  


They had named her Alyce after Good Queen Alysanne of Queensgate tower where they first met.

  


What the photo didn’t show was the day before Sandor Clegane had filed for disability with the VA. In between the stay in the mental hospital and the 30% of his body that was scarred beyond repair the government didn’t question the claim and started sending him payments every month.

 

And so began Sandor Clegane’s new career as a stay at home Dad.

 

It wasn’t easy, there were nights were Sansa would return from working late to find Sandor too exhausted to move. There were the tantrums, the demands, the tears and trips to the “naughty stool”.

 

Then there was the time someone had cut him off on the way to grocery store and his daughter proudly exhibited her new vocabulary words she had learned from her daddy in front of her grandparents.

 

But in between those times there was laughter and singing. Sandor learned to cook the best pancakes and would take his little girl out on the porch every afternoon to watch the birds till Sansa returned from work.

 

At night when his daughter might have been sad from some event of the day, Sandor would sit with her, smoothing her hair with his big, strong hands and told her stories till she felt content and safe.

 

Now eight years after Sandor Clegane walked out of Highgarden VA hospital G Ward on his own two feet he stood in his front yard and took pictures of his daughter on her first day of school.

 

“Smile!” Sansa called and her daughter beamed as her daddy snapped another photograph.

 

Alyce stood in front of the giant peace lily dressed in her favorite jean skirt and purple sparkly unicorn shirt. When Sandor had taken her back-to-school shopping he had let her have the pick of the backpacks. She had turned down the purple ones adored with unicorns and sparkles in favor of Sansa’s old pink backpack she found in the back of a closet. It was faded and thread bare in places but Alyce insisted that this is what she wanted to take to school.

  


“One more!” Sansa called and Alyce giggled.

 

“Mom, here comes the bus!” she squealed jumping up and down as the big yellow vehicle made its way down the street.

 

With time short Alyce threw herself at her mother and a flurry of hugs and kisses.

 

Sandor crouched down and his little girl wrapped her arms around his neck. Out of nowhere she whispered in his ruined ear; “Its going to be okay, daddy.”

 

He held her close as she kissed him on his scars before bounding away to catch the bus, red hair flying and pink backpack bouncing.

  
  
  



End file.
